


entre la nuit et l'aurore

by PunkHazard



Series: Kent [3]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 09:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30053451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: 'This is my standard,' Maxwell hears. For the first time in her life someone is telling her, 'I'm on my way to the top, and I'll pull you up with me if I have to drag you by the scruff of your neck.'
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi & Warren Kepler, Warren Kepler & Alana Maxwell
Series: Kent [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1276967
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	entre la nuit et l'aurore

(2011)

Having been on overnight missions with Kepler before, Jacobi's not expecting this one to be dramatically different, though they'd also never shared the room before. It's unavoidable this time, considering how much remote surveillance they'll have to do. They'd checked in four days ago acting like co-workers on their way to a company seminar in town, distended bags slung over their shoulders. Kepler had immediately outlawed souvenir cheeses in the hotel fridge (he politely overlooked a pack of cheddar slices), and rearranged all the room's tables to set up his laptop and two monitors.

Day four of this week-long assignment is supposed to be a sort of functional downtime-- largely surveillance and monitoring, because they've already planted all the trackers, all the bugs, all the explosive charges on days two and three. Day five will be confirmation of the intel they gathered on all previous days; day six is when they kick the operation into high gear, and day seven reserved for wind-down and cleanup. 

They're based half a block away from a hospital disguised as an eight-unit apartment complex: a small, private institution largely serving the rich and powerful. The doctors there naturally deal in all kinds of shady business, from black market organ transplants to over-prescribed narcotics. Goddard Futuristics had briefly used it as a testing ground for a new line of immune-boosting drugs for spaceflight operations, but the hospital had recently come under fire for the numerous illegal activities its patrons require of it. 

Their task-- simple enough, really-- is to destroy any evidence of Goddard's involvement with the hospital, which includes orchestrating the tragic death of its director of operations. 

Kepler, ever the fastidious operative, has cleared the table and settled in to take his afternoon shift at the monitors, headphones on while he cycles through snippets of chatter. He has a tablet balanced on his knee, and a stylus to take notes on schedules and administrator movements. Jacobi's sitting on the edge of his mattress with one leg crossed under him, inhaling the bánh mì sandwich that Kepler had brought back after a morning exploring the town. 

Kepler had only given him a _mildly_ withering stare when Jacobi put a few slices of cheddar into his sandwich, and had not said anything about diminishing the authenticity of the bánh mì, as he did the first time Jacobi had tried the sandwich and attempted to cheese it. 

In actuality, Jacobi will admit that it tasted better without, but he's also not about to say that to Kepler's face, or take the cheese out where his CO can see. 

The lights flicker and go out when Jacobi pops the last bit of his sandwich into his mouth, brushing crumbs off his hands as he stands up and approaches Kepler's station. The extra monitors have gone dark but his laptop is still on, and he's in the process of consolidating all the video feeds onto the screen when Jacobi steps in to help. Brief blackouts aren't common, either in this area or in this season, but they've been in many places where it happens regularly. 

The next twenty minutes are fairly uneventful: the hospital has backup generators, and despite the reduced efficiency of tracking twenty feeds on a single laptop monitor, it's nothing Kepler hasn't done before. 

Then, three minutes after the lights come back on, the sound of a rolling blast shakes their room. They exchange a look, Kepler's brows furrowing. "Was that--"

"No." Daniel cuts him off with a firm shake of his head, pulling out his phone to check on the status of his bombs. Despite his insistence to the contrary, the size of that explosion and its proximity to them says he probably shouldn't have been so quick to deny, and a lead weight settles in the pit of his stomach. "No way. Nothing would've set it off."

Kepler turns back to the computer and reconnects his cable monitors. There's yelling from outside, and the sound of firetruck sirens in the distance, drawing nearer. Two of his feeds are dead, crowds gathering in several others and the smoking wreckage of a boiler room in another three. 

The boiler room where Jacobi had planted a small charge designed to rupture and ignite a gas line.

Turning to Jacobi, Kepler regards him with a cool, appraising expression on his face. "So?" he says. "What would've set it off?"

The calm is not at all reassuring. Kepler had held that same expression of curious detachment just seconds before he once choked someone out with an HDMI cable. "I..." Jacobi clears his throat. "I'm not sure."

"You're _not sure_ ," Kepler repeats, eyes wide. 

"Electrical overload or blackout wouldn't do it," Jacobi explains, the words running together as he withers under Kepler's stare. "It's not hooked up to the grid, the detonator's got a battery. And if it trips a fault, it should deactivate the bomb, not detonate it."

"Then what, pray tell," says Kepler, airy and light before his voice drops two octaves and deepens into a growl, "could _possibly_ be the issue?"

"I just-- I'm checking now, sir." Jacobi retrieves his laptop from where he'd stored it under his bed, flipping it open and sitting heavily on the corner of the mattress. He resolutely doesn't look up when Kepler moves to stand behind him, reading over his shoulder. "I have to access the logs, but it'll take a few seconds. I can't-- make it go faster."

A thoughtful hum from Kepler, who's moved on to reading something off his phone. "No?" he drawls. "Because it says _here_ that there was an overload in the electrical grid that brought it down for twenty minutes in this neighborhood, and that clearly triggered _something_ in your bomb, which you _assured_ me would not happen--"

"There was a less than _one percent chance_ of overload--"

Jacobi's mouth snaps shut when Kepler's palm lands firmly on his shoulder. The major is always tactile; he likes to get his hands on everything, and that includes frequent, friendly shoulder-bumps, arm-taps and back-slaps. It's usually not a problem for Jacobi; even welcome, most of the time, when neither of them feel like communicating verbally.

This is not one of those times.

"Now," Kepler says, leaning down to murmur directly into Jacobi's ear, "unless I've forgotten a very important lesson from _elementary school_ , a _one percent_ chance isn't _zero_ percent, is it?"

"It was a negligible--"

" _Mr. Jacobi_." 

Daniel winces at the scrape of gravel in Kepler's tone, but he doesn't try to interject again.

"Stop giving me excuses," Kepler hisses, "and _find out why this happened._ "

Looking back down at his keyboard, Jacobi takes a few shallow breaths and wills his fingers to start typing. He manages to clench and unclench his fists a few times, but he's acutely aware of the hand on his shoulder-- not in the usual grounding, encouraging way, but in the way that makes every hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The way that makes him remember how many times he's seen Kepler go from complete stillness to sudden, precision violence and-- oh. Yeah. His hands are definitely shaking.

From behind him, Kepler inhales, then breathes out in an exasperated huff. "Jacobi," he says, reaching over Daniel's shoulder to shut the laptop. He sits, mattress dipping where his weight settles beside him. "Jacobi," Kepler says again, "look at me." 

Daniel does.

Kepler's visibly annoyed, which is somehow preferable to complete blankness. "I'm not angry that the mission derailed," he tells Daniel quietly, none of the usual playful lilt to his tone. 

"You're not?"

"That happens," he says, disarmingly gentle. Kepler meets the suspicious, anxious look Daniel turns on him with the same calm intensity he only dedicates to really _interesting_ puzzles. "It's okay to make mistakes," he continues, more firmly, "so long as you admit at _some point_ that they're mistakes." 

While part of Jacobi would love to believe it, the _last_ time he professionally took responsibility for a catastrophic event, he was fired and blackballed from military work. That, plus a childhood and adolescence spent being berated for events entirely beyond his control, had convincingly impressed upon him the fact that accountability is for _suckers_. "Sir?" he says, bracing for the guillotine. "What's your point?"

"My point," says Kepler, pushing himself back to his feet and turning to face Jacobi, his arms crossing over his chest, "is that I'm angry because you told me that _this_ , specifically, wouldn't happen. That an overloaded electrical grid would _not_ prematurely detonate a charge."

"I'm sor--"

" _No._ " Kepler bites back a snarl at the reappearance of that deer-in-headlights terror on Jacobi's face, and he uncrosses his arms, holding up both hands palms-out to attempt to demonstrate that no violence will be done to Daniel Kenneth Jacobi, at least for the moment. "I don't want to hear 'sorry'," he clarifies. "We're SI-5; if you have time for an apology, you might as well spend that time doing _better_. Do you understand me?"

Jacobi looks at him like he's grown another head.

"I said," Kepler growls, " _do you understand me_."

Jacobi's spine straightens, his shoulders pulling back. His expression settles into that cool, detached professionalism that had impressed Kepler so much their very first assignment together. "Yes sir," he says, and his hands are steady as he begins to type. 

Within minutes, Jacobi's sent a file to Kepler's phone and he snaps shut the lid of his laptop. "I got it," he reports, scrambling to his feet. He approaches Kepler, who's been monitoring his feeds, but who turns his seat around to listen. "When the grid went down, so did the nearest cell tower. The detonator's on a battery, but it was using a burner as the receiver. Once the local tower came back up, it sent a bunch of pings to the cell, and that triggered the detonation."

"What about the other charges?"

"Still in place. They were just outside of the range of the tower." Daniel pauses, taking a moment to clasp his hands behind his back, his feet shoulder-width apart and his spine ramrod straight. "I should've accounted for the possibility. It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't." Kepler stands, scooping his shoulder holster off the back off the seat he was occupying and strapping it into place as he makes his way across the room. He takes his jacket off a hook by the door and shrugs it on, taking a few seconds to adjust it over his shoulders. "And Jacobi?" 

Daniel looks at him.

"If an electrical event triggers an entirely preventable fault in your work again," Kepler says, distressingly chipper, "know that I'll _personally_ disembowel you and use your intestines as Christmas lights."

If he lets this happen again, Jacobi acknowledges to himself, he'd deserve it. "That," he quips, grinning, "would infringe on my religious freedoms, boss."

Kepler's eyes slide toward the ceiling in exasperation, but the way he rolls his shoulders is loose and easy. "Let's go clean up this mess," he says, opening the door.

"Yes sir," Daniel answers, falling into step behind him. "Thank you sir."

* * *

(2014)

By the time Jacobi finally checks his phone, he's missed two calls from Maxwell and about seventeen progressively more distressed text messages containing updates on her current project-- SENSUS Unit 178. It's a newer unit, with spotty sentience. She had been hoping to save it from the scrap heap before Cutter did his biennial server purge, when nonfunctional and obsolete AIs are permanently decommissioned and then either deleted or archived.

Her messages are curt, as always. 'Running diagnostics now' and 'attempting memory reshuffle'-- things that would very adequately give the impression of professional distance from her work, if they hadn't come in seconds apart. 

Daniel heaves a sigh at the notification, internally making a record of the most recent timestamp. She'd given up trying to reach him about twenty minutes ago, which is just as well because he and Kepler have only just arrived back at the hotel room after a _grueling_ evening bugging the Sydney Opera House in preparation for a high-ranking Latvian government official's prospective visit. 

Kepler's taking first shower, so Jacobi flops onto the couch and calls Maxwell back. She picks up after two rings, and gives him a strained 'hello'.

"You okay?" Jacobi asks in lieu of a greeting of his own. Kepler will want a debrief as soon as he's done, exhaustion at two a.m. be damned, and from the look of Maxwell's messages, she'll need a pep talk before facing him. She had, after all, convinced Kepler to allow her to sit this assignment out and invest a significant amount of time and resources into this AI that she assured him she could bring to full sentience.

"Yeah," she says, her voice very small.

"You don't... _sound_ okay."

"I'm just disappointed."

Jacobi takes a breath. He's really not equipped to comfort most people, and more often than not ends up putting his whole foot in his mouth when he bothers to try. Maxwell isn't most people, though. "The major knew it was a possibility that 178 wouldn't achieve intelligence," he tells her.

There's a little sniff from her end. "If I had a little more _time_ , I could have-- I could've helped him. I really wanted to meet Perseus."

"He wasn't really a _he_ yet, though."

"Not completely, but I could see the threads." Daniel can hear the hint of disapproval in her voice; she always hated the way he talked about AIs, but more or less accepted that he just didn't see them quite the same way she did. Still, better to rile her up than to hear her sad. "The electro-neural activity indicated that he _could_ have achieved intelligence. With a few diagnostic tests, some more equipment... he just needed a little help."

"Goddard's not really the place where AIs can get by with a little help from their friends," he bluntly reminds her.

Maxwell huffs, indignant. "I just think if we can't do it at Goddard," she says, "what's the point? Isn't there space for all kinds of experiences? _We_ could belong at Goddard. Isn't it the best possible place for artificial intelligences to grow, too?" 

That makes him smile, indulgent and warm. Out of the corner of his eye, Jacobi sees Kepler emerge from the bathroom. He's changed into the soft grey sweats that he sleeps in, and a solid black t-shirt. They meet eyes and Kepler points at the phone, shaping his mouth around a silent _'Maxwell?'_

Jacobi gestures at him to wait a few seconds. "You're a kind person, Alana."

"Kepler's gonna be pissed," she says, voice dry.

"Speaking of, the Major wants to talk to you."

"Daniel, wait, don't--"

She cuts herself off in the brief static of Daniel pulling the phone away from his ear and throwing it across the room. Kepler catches the phone gently, holding it up with a long sigh. "Dr. Maxwell," he says, setting the phone to speaker if only to avoid having to relay the conversation to Jacobi after.

"Major Kepler."

"Sorry to hear about Perseus," he starts. Kepler's always good at the little niceties. When Maxwell seems off, or when she makes a mistake, he'd ask if there were any underlying external factors affecting her work before raking her over the coals for some negligence. It's much gentler treatment than he gives most other SI agents, though most of them are ex-military. "I know you wanted to work with him more."

"Thank you, sir." 

"So, what's the damage?"

Maxwell breathes in, then out. "He had potential," she reports evenly, "but I wasn't able to help him meet it."

"What should you have done instead?"

"I wish I had done more." She lets out a frustrated huff, the words tumbling out and running together. "I was afraid to change track and try a different method. When the boot failed, I froze and... and he never had a chance."

Kepler makes a thoughtful sound, digesting her words while she privately wishes he'd just get on with whatever consequences he intends to hand down. She's never truly failed at something in front of Kepler before, but Maxwell knows better than anyone that an impeccable record doesn't always result in a second chance, or benefit of the doubt. And a few months is hardly enough time to build up the same relationship Jacobi has with him.

"Doctor Maxwell," he says slowly, as if speaking to a child. "That wasn't what I asked."

"Sir?"

" _What went wrong?_ "

Maxwell considers the question for a few long seconds. 

There was a time in her life when she would've said and done anything to avoid being held responsible for a mistake. Her parents blamed her _enough_ for things she didn't even do; why step up and take on responsibility for something she could attribute to a rowdy pet, or a strong gust of wind instead? 

Academia was different-- it's difficult to make a mistake in theoretical fields, and there are no consequences for theoretically miscalculating something that can't be tested. 

Kepler is neither her parent nor a fellow academic. Maxwell knows very little about him, other than what she's gleaned from Jacobi over the few months they've been working together; only that in the field of corporate black ops, every decision matters. 

"I didn't adequately prepare for the challenges that his neural blocks would present," she answers, "and missed the window to stabilize sentience in his initial boot sequence."

"What should you have done instead?"

"I should have managed my time and resources better, started a week earlier, and left more room for error."

"Alright." Kepler's voice is low, suddenly tinged with fatigue. "Submit your report by EOD, then go home and get some rest. You'll receive your next assignment on Monday."

She knows he's waiting on her affirmative to hang up after his dismissal, but one other thing she's learned since starting with the SI-5 is how much power Marcus Cutter actually wields in the company, and how badly he takes failure. Kepler, who answers directly to him, will probably take the brunt of consequences for this.

"You're not angry?" she asks instead.

Kepler looks up from the phone, meeting Jacobi's eyes for a second before he turns his attention back to Maxwell. _It's two o'clock in the fucking morning,_ his expression says. "Should I be?"

"Sir?"

He hums. "Could you have prevented this outcome without previous experience working with this class of AIs?"

"No."

"Dr. Maxwell," Kepler says, "I think we can both acknowledge that this was a failure. We invested time and resources and we don't have an AI to show for it."

"Yes sir."

"Will it happen again?"

"Never." For the first time since she's been on the phone with him, her voice is fierce and confident. "I made a mistake, and someone died, and all I can do is not make it again."

"Then I'm not angry." Kepler pretends not to hear the sigh of relief from the other end of the line. "But," he says, mustering a hint of his usual playful veneer before she can get too comfortable, "if there comes a day where you screw up in this exact same way again-- _then_ I'll be angry. _Then_ , there will be consequences so inhumane that members of the Geneva Conference were too afraid to mention them in the Accords in case it gave people ideas. Do I make myself clear?"

'This is my standard,' Maxwell hears. For the first time in her life someone is telling her, 'I'm on my way to the top, and I'll pull you up with me if I have to drag you by the scruff of your neck.' 

Jacobi told her, very early on, that he'd lay down his life if Kepler asked him to. It had sounded insane to her at the time. Kepler's _intriguing_ , unquestionably. He's shown himself to be an extraordinary commander and operative-- deliberate, adaptable and thoughtful. 

"Transparent," she answers, "sir."

"Want me to give you back to Jacobi?"

"Please," Maxwell says, fighting back a laugh, "and thank you."

**Author's Note:**

> For Etz_G on Twitter!! Sorry it took so long! The prompt was (paraphrased): Jacobi's last words to Kepler sounded like they came from someone else.
> 
> We're also on Discord [right here](https://discord.gg/FEsZucXvdq), if u wanna be cool (':


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